FROM FELDENKRAIS TOWARDS DANCE

Each session will start with a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lesson. ATM lessons are one of the two teaching formats of the somatic learning method Feldenkrais - which practices embodied self-reflection through movement. The method has a non-goal approach - inviting for playfulness and curiosity. No specific result is expected to be reached by the end of the lesson - the one and only purpose is developing a more nuanced awareness of the execution of basic movements - which is surprisingly complex. The participants explore basic movement patterns in unfamiliar configurations - observing and unravelling patterns of movement, thought, emotion and action. Seeking pleasure and giving time. The participants are encouraged to acknowledge and welcome their current level of ability, to let go of unnecessary effort and to practise care and softness towards themselves.

Subsequently, the sessions glides into a guided movement meditation - using the sharpened awareness gained from the ATM to allow new sensations, unfamiliar pathways and unexpected qualities to evolve. Those guided movement meditations take point of departure in imaginative and speculative bodily situations, in text, in anatomical discoverings, etc.

Exploring different ways of unifying the sensorial input of the own body in movement with the external ideas and concepts. Letting those two sources of information - the subjective experience and the choreographic notion - collide, intertwine and co-exist.

Central to the session is the wish to foster playfulness, joyfulness, imagination, fantasy, curiosity, ease and freedom. Embracing confusion, collision of ideas, meeting the place of not knowing and the uncanny – A practice of decomposing patterns to unlock the potential of moving beyond preconceived ideas that increases the ability to think outside of the box, to enter the unknown and uncertain and ultimately can increase the freedom of movement.

 
 The workshop is in collaboration with Danscentrum Syd.
 
 Antoinette Helbing is choreographer, dancer and member of the artist-run platform Dance Cooperativ. She divides her time between creating works, performing, teaching and her practice within the Feldenkrais method.
 
Her choreographic work is driven by her wish to create art that evokes the viewer's sense of belonging, of togetherness and empathy. Reminding the viewer that we, beyond our instagram handles, are actual living and breathing beings, Antoinette creates experiences within and across bodies. Working towards connection, she addresses the empathic through the confrontation with the sensual force of the moment. Allowing the audience to become aware by their own sensual experience of themselves as spectators.
 
Since 2017 she is researching laughter as choreographic material and somatic practice facilitating human connection. This practice is a point of departure for a series of works that circulate around laughter as for instance the solo The Laughing Game, the walk Landscapes of Laughter, the movies AFTERLAUGHTER and the group piece The Laughing Crowd which exists in a site-specific version as well as in a stage version